Thursday, June 23, 2016

they say that if you have been friends with someone for more than seven years, you will be friends for your lifetime. i have found that to be true. there are some friends that i have known so long, they are no longer just friends but extended family.

that is the case with us. heather and i met in a summer school class in our small college in san diego in 1997. i had just moved into a house with a couple other girls and we needed a roommate. i figured heather and i had laughed at the same things in that summer school class and i'd known her for a full 24 hours so i figured she would work. little did we know that during that one class, we would set the stage for a lifetime of sisterhood friendship. we added one more roommate over time and our household of five college aged girls was complete.

over the next year, we laughed together, fought with each other, dated a parade of boys that came through the house, vacationed together, cried together, danced in our socks across the hardwood floors and grew up together in one of the most life altering years of our lives. as time and years passed, we walked through heartbreak together, first jobs together, engagements, marriages, and babies. heather was the first call i made when i went into labor with my first born son. these girls have walked through each stage of live with me. they are precious beyond what words can describe.

over the years we see each other less and less. when we are together, however, it is as if no time has passed. we talk over each other's sentences, filling the space and the years with excited words and pieces of our lives. we have a bond that distance and years can't separate and time together is like medicine for the heart. these girls have known me at my worst, my most insecure, my most indecisive, my most fearful, my most brokenhearted. they have seen me through every life stage and have loved me through each. when i look back at the last 20 years, i cannot imagine those years without the fingerprints of each one of these women in my life.

this weekend during a blogging trip to california, we managed to secure child care, carve out time, and spend a few precious hours together. we could have talked for hours and the child care ended long before we were ready to go. it was short but every second of time we spent together reminded me why i love these girls so much. we are different, have different views, live in different towns, have a total of 17 kids between us, have husbands with varying careers, have walked through divorce, cancer, sickness, moves, miles of separation, and more but we still come back to the heart of it all every time we are together. we remember why it was we count those college years as so dear. we remember all of the laughter, all of the shared tears, and years and years of memories built together. in one quick moment, our lives come together once more.

this is what friendship should look like. friendship walks through fires and years and separation and lives to tell the tale. friendship looks beyond differences and finds the things we have in common. friendship loves through bad hair-do's and the passing trend of baggy jean overalls. friendship turns strangers who met in a summer school class into the family we choose for ourselves. friendship loves through thick and thin and makes us better for the years spent together. friendship makes life sweeter. thank you, sweet friends, for being mine for the last twenty years. i couldn't love you more.